Mexico Legislative and Governor elections June 6th 2021

[jaichind]

These writeups on governor races are amazing !! Thanks.

[jaichind]

I did a back-of-the-envelope estimate of all 300 district seats based on the assumption

a) MORENA mostly retains its 2018 base
b) PAN PRI PRD are able to transfer their votes to each other.

I get

MORENA-PVEM-PT     120
MORENA                    64
PAN-PRI-PRD             75
PAN                          31
PRI                             6
PRD                            0
MC                             4

PAN has a bunch of bastion seats that they were not willing to share with PRI and PRD but will end up winning anyway.

This assessment has AMLO bloc winning 184 out of 300 seats.  Enough of the 120 MORENA-PVEM-PT winners will be PVEM and PT (in name only of course) that MORENA should be able to get around the 8% rule and get all the PR seats due to them based on their vote share.

If you then assume that parties like PRD PVEM PT get above 3% to get PR seats but parties like PES FPM RSP fall below 3% to get PR seats then MORENA-PVEM-PT should get around 110 out of 200 PR seats which would take the total AMLO bloc seat count to 294 seats from 306 in 2018.

For AMLO to get to his goal of 334 out 500 seats for his bloc he has to hope that the PAN PRI PRD will not be able to shift their votes to each other.

[jaichind]

RSP will run in 296 seats (new Leftist party)
FPM will run in 296 seats (MORENA splinter)
PES will run in 299 seats (Christian social conservative, ex-ally of MORENA.)  PES failed to win 3% in 2018 and got deregistered.  PES is trying to get around 3% this time around to become a registered party and get government funding.   

Just some minor corrections here. FxM (Force for Mexico) is not really a Morena splinter - it is perhaps an aspiring Morena satellite - but rather the property of Pedro Haces Barba (briefly Morena senator in 2018-9) and leader of the CATEM trade union confederation, which is styling itself as the 'new generation' of Mexican trade unionism accompanying the fourth transformation (in reality he has a dark priista past and is just as nasty and crooked as old charros). There are strong signals that Ricardo Monreal, Morena's leader in the Senate, is quietly supporting the party (his daughter is a pluri candidate for FxM). It is pretending to be a centrist progressive party, playing with feminist rhetoric and claiming to be the party of youth.

RSP (Progressive Social Networks) is pretending to be a centre-left party using a bunch of cool catchphrases. In reality it is owned by Elba Esther Gordillo, La Maestra, the infamously corrupt former leaders of the teachers' union SNTE. The party's leader is her son-in-law, her grandson is in the leadership, her daughter and nephew are among the party's candidates. Gordillo's main long-term goal is to retake control of the SNTE and is allied with AMLO, so RSP would be another Morena satellite party were it to survive. In its desperate bid to pass the 3% live-or-die threshold, it is running a wonderfully random bunch of memes, clowns, dumb celebrities, foul-mouthed actors, OnlyFans models, masked luchadores and cowboy cosplayers. My favourites are Alfredo Adame (an old Televisa soap actor) who is campaigning by telling voters to f!ck their mothers, or OnlyFans model Rocío Pina who is promising free new tits for women while posing semi-nude.

PES 2.0 is indeed the same old crap as PES 1.0, and not really 'former' allies of Morena - they still very much are Morena allies, with their added value being crude homophobia and anti-abortion histrionics. Their concerns for women's wellbeing is kind of belied by the fact that Hank is among their candidates.

How interesting.   I thought Esther Gordillo and AMLO were on very bad terms.  I had not idea that she is now allied with AMLO.  Was not PANAL a Esther Gordillo party ?  I guess with PANAL gone at the national after the 2018 she is forming another political party.

[jaichind]

I went back and looked at the MORENA-PVEM-PT and PAN-PRI-PVEM coalition agreements and was able to get the party ID of the candidate for the seats they are in alliance in.  

I was able then to map that onto my back-of-the-envelope projects based on 2018 results which gives us


MORENA-PVEM-PT     120
    MORENA                     62
    PVEM                          22
    PT                              36
MORENA                    64

PAN-PRI-PRD             75
   PAN                            40
   PRI                            18
   PRD                           17
PAN                          31
PRI                             6
PRD                            0

MC                             4

Which gives us district seats by party

MORENA      126
PVEM            22
PT                36
PAN              71
PRI               24
PRD              17
MC                 4

Obviously there has been churn since 2018 so these numbers are going to be off.  But a couple of interesting facts about these numbers  are PAN >> PRI and PT>PVEM.   The reason they are interesting is most media projections have either PAN and PRI neck to neck in terms of seats or a small PAN edge over PRI and at the same the most media projections PVEM with more total seats than PT.  I am sure once we add in PR seats the gap between PVEM and PT will narrow.  

I have no idea what the result will be but my back-of-the-envelope model seems to indicate that there will be a wide gap between the number of total seats PAN wins and PRI wins given the lean of the seats that they are contesting.  It will be interesting to see election night if my back-of-the-envelope model is correct or the media poll projections.

[jaichind]

Something interesting I just noticed.

Just saw this photo on one of the Mexico political sites I was looking at.  It appears to be called "saludo a la bandera" which the way the Mexicans give respects to the Mexican Flag and is stipulated by the Mexican laws during the Flag ceremony in official and sports events where the Flag is involved.


The reason I was interested in looking this up is because this salute is exactly the same as the India Hindu nationalist RSS salute.

Here is India PM Modi doing the RSS salute with other key members of the RSS which Modi also belongs to.

[jaichind]

This is what a Lower House ballot will look like. 



The idea is even if parties have alliances and have a joint candidate the vote still should indicate their party preference (or vote for independent candidate if any) to be the input to compute the PR seat allocations.

[jaichind]

If you look at the 2018 average vote share of each alliance party in seats that were allocated to each alliance partner you get
 
                                        2018
2021        seats     MORENA     PVEM       PT       Total
MORENA     88       39.62%    4.82%  4.06%     48.50%
PVEM         50        33.20%   5.89%   3.87%     42.96%
PT             45        39.70%   4.38%   5.62%     49.70%

MORENA and PT seats are pretty much identical which pretty much means all PT candidates are all de facto MORENA candidates just to get around the 8% rule.  PVEM has a worse set of seats than MORENA and PT which implies PVEM did push for candidates under its control and in return got harder to win seats.


2021       seats       PAN           PRI       PRD      Total
PAN           72        22.34%   15.66%   3.96%   41.96%
PRI            77        12.80%   18.96%   5.71%   37.47%
PRD           70        11.45%   14.25%   9.39%   35.09%

The seats allocated clearly are correlated to the lean of each seat.   PAN has the better seats and PRD has the worst seats.  This sort of gives you a sense of the pecking order in terms of negotiation power between these three parties.  Also vote transfer efficiency will be a key issue for this alliance given how the vote are dispersed  across all 3 parties.

[jaichind]

How do you guys see the federal/governor elections playing out? I see MORENA maintaining a majority in the Chamber of Deputies, but losing their key two-thirds majority. The governor elections should be very interesting as a lot of them have become competitive and tightened up recently. I predict the following:

MORENA wins: BC, Colima, Guerrero, Michoacan, Nayarit, Sinaloa, Sonora, Tlaxcala, Zacatecas
PRI/PAN/PRD wins: BCS, Chihuahua, Queretaro, San Luis Potosi
MC: Campeche, Nuevo Leon

Zacatecas, Campeche, and Chihuahua are the ones I'm most unsure of and closest to tossups, but these are my predictions. PRI would be down to like 5 governors if this holds lol and MORENA up to half of Mexico's governors.

I do not know that much by my guess for governor races are

Baja California:   MORENA-PVEM-PT
Baja California Sur:  PAN-PRI-PRD
Campeche:   MORENA-PT
Chihuahua:   PAN-PRD
Colima:   MORENA-PANAL
Guerrero:  MORENA
Michoacán:   MORENA-PT
Nayarit :  MORENA-PVEM-PT-PANAL
Nuevo León: MC
Querétaro:  PAN
San Luis Potosí:  PAN-PRI-PRD
Sinaloa:  MORENA
Sonora:  MORENA-PVEM-PT-PANAL
Tlaxcala:   MORENA-PVEM-PT-PANAL-PES
Zacatecas:  MORENA-PVEM-PT-PANAL

MORENA edges out PRI in all the MORENA-PRI marginals

As for the Congress my back-of-the-envelope seat count for MORENA-PVEM-PT of around 294 I think represents the floor for the AMLO bloc since that assumes that PAN-PRI-PRD are able to perfectly transfer their votes to each other which I am sure would be the case.  In the end I think the AMLO bloc will be around 306 seats they (MORENA-PT-PES) got in 2018.

[jaichind]

This is what a Lower House ballot will look like. 

[ img ]

The idea is even if parties have alliances and have a joint candidate the vote still should indicate their party preference (or vote for independent candidate if any) to be the input to compute the PR seat allocations.

How does voting for an "independent candidates" party practically work? Do they just go towards the most popular independent candidate?

Well the district in question the impact is simple, if the independent candidate wins the most vote he/she is the winner. For PR purpose a vote for an independent candidate is a wasted vote.

The ROC had a similar system like this in 1992-2004 where you had multi-member districts and the vote for a candidate with a party label counted toward that party's PR seat allocation where a vote for an independent candidate (which is more likely given the fact that the seats are multi-member) is a wasted vote from a PR seat allocation point of view.   Starting in 2008 ROC legislative elections shifted to two vote system with one vote for a single member district and one vote for party for the purpose of PR seats which is just like Japan but without the best loser option to be elected on the PR slate. 

[jaichind]

El Financiero exit polls

Campeche:   Too close to call between  MORENA-PT and PRI-PAN-PRD
Nuevo León: Too close to call between PRI-PRD and MC
Querétaro:  PAN
Tlaxcala:   MORENA-PVEM-PT-PANAL-PES
Zacatecas:  MORENA-PVEM-PT-PANAL

The Compeche too close to call is bad news for MORENA landslide narrative

[jaichind]

Given how the El Financiero exit polls went it seems clear that Massive Caller has a PAN bias this cycle.

[jaichind]

Wow MC not even being in contention in Campeche is interesting. The polls were super close in the state, but MC was typically leading in the polls. Early results look solid for MORENA so far.

Yeah. Given the exit polls so far this night looks like it is not going great for MC.

[jaichind]

^We could see MORENA walk away with 12/15 governorships if that's the case, though BCS would be a hard swing for MORENA.

I guess this is possible if MORENA wins all the tossups and also wins Chihuahua where it is a slight underdog and Baja California Sur where I guess in theory they could win.

[jaichind]

I wonder why El Financiero did not poll San Luis Potosí.  I assume they did not poll Guerrero and Michoacán due to lack of local infrastructure and/or crime.

[jaichind]

El Financiero exit polls

Chihuahua:   PAN-PRD

[jaichind]

If PAN-PRD won Chihuahua by a good margin then it is clear that the PRI vote tactically voted PAN-PRD to defeat MORENA. If so that has implications in Congressional seats where vote transfers between PAN PRI and PRD might be better than I would expect.  If so I would find it hard for AMLO bloc to beat the 306 seats they won back in 2018.

[jaichind]

El Financiero exit polls

Sonora:  MORENA-PVEM-PT-PANAL

[jaichind]

El Financiero exit polls

Lower House vote

MORENA   40%
PVEM         4%
PT             3%
PRI          21%
PAN         20%
PRD          3%
MC            5%

MORENA about where you expect it.  PRI and PAN overperforming.  Of PRI-PAN-PRD are at 44% there is very little chance of AMLO bloc going above 300 seats.

[jaichind]

Very early but so far PAN-PRI-PRD doing better than expected in Congressional count (4% of the vote in)

                             Ahead    Vote share (non-Null)
MORENA-PVEM-PT    152              42.98%
PAN-PRI-PRD           110              44.50%
MC                           10                6.87%

[jaichind]

With 9.2% of the vote counted in PREP for Congressional vote we have

                             Ahead    Vote share (non-Null)
MORENA-PVEM-PT    160              42.99%
PAN-PRI-PRD           111              44.16%
MC                             8                6.98%

The count in opposition seats must be higher ergo we have vote MORENA bloc behind in vote share but ahead in terms of seats.

My back-of-the-envelope calculation of seats had AMLO bloc at 184 seats.  With the remaining 21 seats with no leads being more likely to lean MORENA so far that estimate is roughly correct with slight AMLO bloc underperformance.

[jaichind]

Luis Carlos Ugalde, ex-Prez of Mexico's INE said that El Financiero exit polls on Congress vote implied that AMLO bloc will get around 260 seats, far less than AMLO would have hoped.

[jaichind]

One last update from me before I head to bed for a few hours

With 17.5% of the vote counted in PREP for Congressional vote we have

                             Ahead    Vote share (non-Null)
MORENA-PVEM-PT    170              43.16%
PAN-PRI-PRD           113              43.55%
MC                             8                7.23%


Compared to my back-of-the-envelope projections it is
      
                               Ahead         My projection
MORENA                     59                  64
PVEM                           1                    0
MORENA-PVEM-PT      110               120
PAN                            34                 31
PRI                             12                   6
PRD                              0                   0
PAN-PRI-PRD              67                  75
MC                              8                    4

PAN PRI MC are outperforming and AMLO bloc are underperforming.  But the count is early and MORENA could very well turn this around

[jaichind]

With 65.8% of the vote counted in PREP for Congressional vote we have

                             Ahead    Vote share (non-Null)
MORENA-PVEM-PT    185              43.88%
PAN-PRI-PRD           108              41.89%
MC                             7                7.22%

Compared to my back-of-the-envelope projections it is
     
                               Ahead         My projection
MORENA                     66                  64
PVEM                           1                    0
MORENA-PVEM-PT      118               120
PAN                            34                 31
PRI                             11                   6
PRD                              0                   0
PAN-PRI-PRD              63                  75
MC                              7                    4

The back-of-the-envelope model I had ended up being pretty accurate.  MC at 7.22% is doing better than expected.  I suspect the vote share of AMLO block will go up from here.

PT should make the 3% cut although it is not clear PRD will.  PES and FxM will both miss the 3% cut but both will be close.

[jaichind]

With 69.7% of the vote counted in PREP for Congressional vote we have (all non-NULL vote share)

                             Ahead    Vote share (non-Null)
MORENA-PVEM-PT    185              43.91%
PAN-PRI-PRD           108              41.82%
MC                             7                7.22%

Compared to my back-of-the-envelope projections it is
     
                               Ahead         My projection
MORENA                     66                  64
PVEM                           1                    0
MORENA-PVEM-PT      118               120
PAN                            34                 31
PRI                             11                   6
PRD                              0                   0
PAN-PRI-PRD              63                  75
MC                              7                    4


Vote by party (and projected PR seats)

PAN         19.74%     42
PRI          18.50%     40
PRD           3.58%      8
PVEM         5.16%    11
PT             3.08%      7
MC            7.22%    15
MORENA  35.69%    77
PES           2.62%
RSP          1.73%
FxM          2.62%

This gives us current seat count

MORENA-PVEM-PT        280
PAN-PRI-PRD               198
MC                               22

[jaichind]

Governor races (too lazy to strip out NULL)

Baja California (40.9% in)

MORENA-PVEM-PT     48.39%
PES                          31.24%  !!
PAN-PRI-PRD            11.74%

PAN-PRI-PRD candidate is an independent so the PAN vote it seems went to PES


Baja California Sur (69.5% in)
MORENA-PT              46.62%
PAN-PRI-PRD            40.11%
PVEM                        3.10%

MORENA ahead beating pre-election polls


Campeche (25.3% in)
MORENA-PT              32.40%
MC                           31.95%
PRI-PAN-PRD            31.56%

Very close 3 way race.  Wow


Chihuahua (40.6% in)
PAN-PRD                  45.99%
MORENA-PT-PANAL   30.95%
MC                          12.31%
PRI                           5.18%

PRI vote tactically voted for PAN-PRD


Colima (51.2% in)
MORENA-PANAL       32.98%
PRI-PAN-PRD           28.49%
MC                          17.96%
PVEM                      12.96%

Very splintered vote


Guerrero (23.3% in)
MORENA                46.74%
PRI-PRD                38.71%
PVEM-PT                 4.50%

Daughter of controversial original MORENA candidate wins


Michoacán (69.3% in)
MORENA-PT            41.27%
PRD-PRI-PAN          39.18%
PVEM                      5.55%
MC                         3.97%
PES                        3.32%

Somewhat closer than expected but MORENA-PT looks likely to win.


Nayarit (41.1% in)
MORENA-PVEM-PT-PANAL      50.30%
MC                                      20.80%
PAN-PRI-PRD                       16.01%
MLN                                     4.69% (local party)

Poor showing by ruling PAN


Nuevo León (50.0% in)
MC                                    36.87%
PRI-PRD                            27.68%
PAN                                  18.54%
MORENA-PVEM-PT-PANAL   13.83%

Inability for PRI-PRD and PAN to come together allowed MC to win


Querétaro (site is down but it is clear PAN have won)


San Luis Potosí (25.4% in)
PVEM-PT                   36.40%
PAN-PRI-PRD            34.26%
MORENA                   11.70%
RSP                            8.45%

PVEM-PT ahead which could change.  Anti-MORENA sentiment is strong here so the ruse of running PVEM-PT separately seems to be working for now


Sinaloa (28.5% in)
MORENA-PAS            55.98%
PRI-PAN-PRD            34.17%

PAS is a local party


Sonora (38.1% in)

MORENA-PVEM-PT-PANAL   51.28%
PRI-PAN-PRD                    37.37%
MC                                    4.48%


Tlaxcala (11.8% in)
MORENA-PVEM-PT-PANAL-PES    47.93%
PRI-PAN-PRD                            37.74%
RSP                                          5.93%


Zacatecas (64.3% in)
MORENA-PVEM-PT-PANAL         48.50%
PRI-PAN-PRD                           37.69%
MC                                          3.19%


Overall the PAN-PRI alliance did not work.  Where it could have made a difference (Nuevo León) they failed to form an alliance and where they formed an alliance it was not good enough to win.  If they come from behind in San Luis Potosí to win they that would be the only state where PAN-PRI alliance would have made a difference.  Same with Michoacán  where if PRD-PRI-PAN does come from behind to win then the grand alliance would have made a difference.